


one day, maybe next week

by mayerwien



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Epic Friendship, Fix-It of Sorts, Friendship, Gen, Male Friendship, OT5, OT5 Friendship, Reincarnation, Zayn Leaves One Direction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 07:17:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5734486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayerwien/pseuds/mayerwien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(i'm gonna meet you.)</p><p>Or, Zayn remembers everything, every single time. Reincarnation AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	one day, maybe next week

**Author's Note:**

> I did Actual Research for this fanfic. I did SO MUCH Actual Research for this fanfic.  
> Also I’m stupidly proud of the key lime pie.

* * *

 

In one life, Zayn leaves the band.

“I’m just tired,” he tells them, the same way he’s been telling them over the course of this last tour. They’re in the bus, all of them sitting down on the beds—except Zayn, who for some reason finds himself standing in the middle of the floor like he’s giving a presentation at school. “The schedule, everything…”

“So take a _break,”_ Louis says simply, the expression on his face suggesting that Zayn is an idiot for not coming up with the solution himself.

Niall nods enthusiastically, glancing from Zayn to Louis and back again. “Yeah. Yeah, sounds like a plan. Get some time off, y’know, rest up, be with the family and that.”

Clenching and unclenching his fists, Zayn shifts his gaze down to the carpet. There’s a giant white stain right under his sneaker, from when Harry spilled a jug of Pepsi once and they’d tried to get it out with the bleach from the toilet. “No, I mean…look, you guys know this music was never really my thing. I just want…space to like, try different stuff.”

“Oh, so it’s the _music_ now?” Louis’ eyes glint dangerously. “Because a while ago you said it was the schedule. What, so next you’re going to say you’ve got a problem with us, too?”

“Lou, don’t.” Harry nudges him in the ribs, but Louis just sucks his cheeks in, turning his head away.       

Zayn says some other things after that, but he doesn’t even know where they come from. They’re just words, all variations of _please try to understand_ and _I’m sorry_ strung together in the hopes that they’ll mean something. The others stay silent and let him babble on until he runs out.

“We’re still going to be _friends,”_ Zayn finally gets out desperately.

“Of course we will,” Liam says gently. Niall is just staring and staring down at his shoes.

“Right! Of course! It’s all fine, everything’s going to be fine, because no matter what, we’re still going to be _friends.”_ Louis draws his mouth into a thin line. “Well. Now we’ve got that established, I’m going to bed.”

With that, Louis lies down and rolls over violently to face the wall, jolting Harry out of the bed as he does. Zayn doesn’t bother pointing out that it’s his bunk Louis is kipping in—just crawls resignedly under Louis’ sheets instead. They smell like him; not like anything particularly good, really, just incredibly familiar.

Zayn can hear the others still whispering to one another in the low light, even as he falls asleep.

 

Time away allows Zayn to breathe, for the first time in years. He has dinner with his family every single night, and wakes up to the sounds of his mum in the kitchen, listening to the news and making coffee. He braids his little sister’s hair and drops her off at school. He goes camping in the woods for a week, getting the stars in his lungs, putting them into songs. He doesn’t think about the four of them at all.

Until the stupid Twitter fight happens. At first Zayn just shakes his head and watches from the sidelines, but the more Louis snarks, the more Zayn feels like he’s deliberately picking away at him, at the walls of the safe zone he got away to build. So Zayn gets angry, and says a couple of things he’ll come to regret—but even when the worst of it is over, and Zayn’s dropped the twat and signed with a different producer, he feels as though Lou did him a favor in some weird way, and that keeps him angry for a while.

Then the months start dragging by instead of flying, and the songs are coming to him less and less frequently. Zayn finds himself walking the streets with no particular destination in mind, stopping by all his old childhood haunts—the playground, the sweetshop, the library—hoping they’ll give him something, some kind of secret truth or sign. He tries sketching instead of writing, thinking maybe he can work out the shape of a melody, if not the words. Always, he comes up empty.

At night, he has dreams where he’s still on stage, the lights hot on his face, the screams making him almost unable to hear his own voice, and he wakes up gasping for air before he can do what he always used to do in those days—turn around to see the faces of the only people in the world who understood.

He calls Liam first. Then Harry, after trying Niall three times and getting no answer. They’re both good, both enjoying their own break; but the conversations are hollow, bad copies of what they used to be, and Zayn hangs up feeling worse than he did before he called. Niall is staying away, Zayn thinks probably because he doesn’t understand, because he feels betrayed. He’s pretty sure Louis hates him.

 _You’ve made your bed, boy,_ he tells himself as he scratches out another line in his notebook, _and now you’re well laying in it, aren’t you?_

At Christmas, Zayn goes out to sit on his back step and sends them all happy-holidays-hope-you’re-well texts, on the off chance they decide to check their mobiles in the middle of all the partying they’re undoubtedly doing. While he waits, he remembers the holidays they did spend together—the fire going strong, the hot chocolate liberally laced with whatever was in the liquor cupboard, the reckless dare-or-dare games after midnight. He sits there for four hours, but none of them reply.

 _If I could get just one do-over,_ he thinks, looking up at the vast night sky and letting the cold seep into his chest. And then he doesn’t complete the thought because it’s stupid, and too painful, imagining something you know you’ll never have.

 

* * *

 

In another life, Zayn doesn’t go to the audition. Instead, he goes away to uni, majoring in English just like he’s always wanted.

His mum cries a little when he leaves, but he makes sure to call every night without fail. (His sisters consistently inform him of the changes they’ve made to his bedroom, which include cutouts of kittens and Benedict Cumberbatch posters on his walls.) Zayn joins the staff of the school paper, and occasionally sits in on sculpture and pottery classes. He gets good marks. He’s happy.

He’s browsing the stacks in the library one day, looking for a book about the Renaissance, when he passes by a boy wearing some kind of team windbreaker, with round cheeks and a slick head of light-coloured hair. Zayn glances at him briefly, just as he’s edging past—and all of a sudden, in a blinding flash of recognition, he knows who he is, all the things they’ve done together in a different lifetime.

He _remembers._

“Payno,” Zayn blurts out, dropping the book.

Rather than throwing his arms around him like he’d expected, Liam startles and looks about ready to shake a crucifix in his direction, and half-dazed, Zayn realizes Liam doesn’t _know._ It’s just him.

“I mean—it’s Payne, right?” Zayn stammers, scrambling to pick his book up and gathering it to his chest.

Liam’s still frowning a little, but he nods. “Do I know—?”         

“Freshers party,” Zayn lies quickly, trying to catch his breath as he looks at Liam like he’s never looked at anyone before. God, how can Liam not be _feeling_ all of this—whatever it is? Deja-vu times a million, a supernova in reverse, things coming together instead of falling apart. Niall, Harry, Louis. Liam, _Liam,_ with his sparkling eyes and easy laugh, Liam the good sport, the team dad, who brought an organized toiletries bag for all of them on every tour, who stubbornly insisted on eating ice cream and soup with a fork, who little by little taught Zayn how to swim in their hotels’ kids’ pools—Liam fucking _Payne,_ a total _stranger._ “We had a bit of a chat, erm…while getting drinks?”

“Ah.” The confusion on Liam’s face clears. “I talk to a lot of people at parties, so—not surprised I don’t remember you.” He chuckles.

 _Too right you don’t remember me,_ Zayn thinks. But he sees his chance, and takes it. “Hey, yeah, I think I seen you there with a couple—friends of mine? Think they’ve a class with you, er…Harry Styles?” Liam slowly shakes his head. “Louis Tomlinson? Niall Horan?”

“Sorry, mate. Sure you’re not mixing me up with someone else?” A small, indulgent grin appears on Liam’s face. It’s not an expression Zayn recognizes on him, and he’s surprised to feel an instant dislike rising up inside. “Anyway, love to stay and chat, but, er, got to get to practice.”

“Practice?”

“Rugby!” Liam taps the logo on the front of his windbreaker, still grinning in that condescending way. “Where you been living, mate? Don’t you watch the matches? Thought that’s where you recognized me from.”

“Oh, no, I’m not really a…” Zayn trails off. Now that he thinks about it, he remembers having seen the rugby team faffing about on the green a couple of times, all of them chanting _Bring the pain, bring the pain!_ Payne with a Y, Zayn realizes belatedly, shaking his head. The universe, it appears, has a terrible sense of humour.

Liam runs a hand through his hair. “Really only came by here to pick up something for a report. I mean, fuck classical lit, am I right?”

“Right,” Zayn repeats dully, his fingers tightening around the spine of his book.

“Hah. Well, see you at the next match—did you say what your name was?”

“Zayn.”

“Zayn. See you there then, mate,” Liam says easily, sounding confident that he will. He claps Zayn heavily on the shoulder, and Zayn feels jolted to the bone. And utterly, utterly helpless.

So he just stands there, in the middle of the aisle, watching Liam walk away. As he does, he overhears a snatch of a melody, and realizes Liam is whistling, softly but tunefully, to himself as he goes.

 

* * *

 

In another life, Zayn walks into a café one rainy afternoon, in search of a latte and maybe a croissant, when he takes a look at the person behind the register and nearly has a heart attack.

“Whoa,” says Harry, reaching out across the counter to grab Zayn’s forearm and steady him. “You all right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Zayn replies, rubbing his eyes roughly and straightening up. “Sorry, just—someone walked over me grave, or something.”

Harry’s forehead crinkles in the space between his eyebrows. He’s breathing out of his mouth a little, fogging up the little plastic guard around his chin. “Sure you’re all right? You look pale. You’ve not got—diabetes, or something? Do you need, like—oh God, I don’t know what people with diabetes need—“

“I haven’t got diabetes.” Zayn smiles, half to reassure him and half in amusement. “Which is why I’m having a latte and a slice of—“ He squints into the glass dessert case. “ _’Baby You Lime Up My World’_ Key Lime Pie?” he asks incredulously.

“Came up with that one myself.” Harry beams. “And sure thing. Just grab a seat, and I’ll bring it over.”

“Thanks. Hey, er.” Zayn glances around the empty café. “Just you, is it?”

“Yeah, my boss popped out to run some errands. She trusts me.”

“Well, judging by the weather, it’ll be a while before you get any other customers, yeah? You could join me, if you want.” Zayn drops a couple of bills onto the counter. “Make it the latte, the pie, and whatever you like.”

Harry scrunches up his face. “You don’t have to—“

“No, honestly, it’s you who’ll be doing me the favor. I been hiding in my flat, haven’t seen no-one in two weeks. Think I need to relearn how to be a human being, like.” Zayn sticks his hand out. “I’m Zayn.”

“Harry.” Harry shakes his hand, grinning. “Cheers, then.” While Harry rings the order up, Zayn settles at a table by the window and watches the rain bleeding down onto the outside sill. Every couple of seconds, he glances over at Harry, watching him expertly dart to and fro behind the counter. The work suits him, Zayn thinks fondly; he can imagine Harry being happy serving up ridiculously-named desserts and chatting up customers all day long.

“So what is it you do, Zayn?” Harry asks, once he’s taken off his apron and mouth guard, and brought over a tray with both their coffees and the slice of pie on a plate.

Zayn peers down at his cup. Harry’s drawn a little cat in it with steamed milk. “I’m, er, I _was_ a colourist. For comics, y’know?” He rubs the back of his neck.

“Seriously? Like, Batman and stuff like that?” Harry’s eyebrows shoot up, and he leans forward, propping his elbows on the table.

Zayn laughs a little. “God, if only. But nah, nothing as huge as that. I were working for this indie publisher, _sixty_ pages a month it was. Then I started getting, what d’you call it, carpal tunnel. Pay was crap, too, so I quit.” He takes a sip of his latte—it’s good, like liquid gold running down his throat.

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“S’all right. Not worth fuckin’ up me wrist for. I’ve rested up, though, so I think I’m about ready to find a colouring job again. Less stressful one.” Zayn picks up his fork and digs into the pie next, cracking through the layer of meringue.

“Is it fun? Colouring in other people’s artwork?” Harry, bless him, _actually_ makes a colouring motion with his right hand, and Zayn is overcome with an inexplicable desire to give Harry a hug.

“Erm. Pays the bills. And it’s relaxing, sometimes. To not have to think too much. But yeah, when you’re filling in the same pavement in every panel, the same sky, the same tree, it can get…tiresome.” Popping a forkful of pie into his mouth, Zayn relishes the tartness on his tongue, letting it slowly melt away.

“You should just make your own stuff, then.” Harry tents his hands and leans back, looking at him simply, like it really is that simple.

“It’s not that simple,” Zayn says lamely. It’s not like he hasn’t _tried_ —he put himself through art school, did the seniors’ showcase and attempted to sell a couple of his pieces, with no luck. He’s signed up for the occasional bazaar and art show in the past, too, but when he was sat there behind the table, he could see the lack of interest on the faces of the people passing by, the way they made beelines for artists whose work was cleaner, finer, easier to understand. He tries not to think about any of that too much, because if he does, he’ll have to confront the possibility that it was all worthless, that he’s just not enough and never will be. “Not that simple,” he says again.

“It is if you’re good. _Are_ you any good? I wanna see.” Harry wiggles his eyebrows.

“It’s not like I bring my portfolio around with me to show to strangers.” Zayn rolls his eyes, and then pauses. “Oh, but I do have…” Rolling his shirt sleeves up from his wrists, Zayn lays both his forearms on the table. “I, er, designed all of them meself.”

For a while, Harry doesn’t speak. He just looks at Zayn's tattoos, something akin to wonder on his face. Harry’s eyes trail over the lion spread across the inside of his left arm, the giant intricate mandala on his right, the mountain in the crook of his elbow. Extending one finger, Harry lightly touches Zayn’s right wrist, where a pentagon with a star at each point is inked in blue.

And Zayn remembers, without having to try very hard at all, that he’d held Harry’s hand while Harry was getting his first tattoo. _You can ask to take little breaks in between,_ Zayn had told him, rubbing the sweat from Harry’s palm off on his jeans. Harry had been cracking nervous jokes up until he actually saw the needle, when he’d gotten very quiet and started staring up at the ceiling. _Take deep breaths,_ Zayn had said, as he locked fingers with him again. _And just talk to me. Keep talking to me._

“These are _ace,”_ Harry says now. A stray curl of hair has flopped over his eyes, and he looks up through it, earnestly meeting Zayn’s gaze. “And you _should_ bring your portfolio around to show to strangers,” Harry adds politely. “I’m sure they’d be happy to see it.”

“Thanks.” Slightly embarrassed, Zayn pulls his sleeves back down and withdraws his arms. “So, erm, what about you? What d’you do?”

Harry puffs the stray curl away. “I just work here, really. I went to law school for a bit…stopped after my first term, though. Couldn’t stick it.”

“Really? Why’s that?” Zayn tilts his head.

Glancing down at the table, Harry replies, “I dunno, I just, I felt like everything was taking too long. I really just wanna— _help_ people, y’know? Not be stuck in a library all day reading books.” He scratches at a small chip in the edge of the table with a fingernail.

“Mate. That’s just part of the journey, that is.”

“I know, I know.” Harry sighs.

“What kind of a lawyer did you wanna be, like? Sorry, don’t mean to put you on the spot or nothing, I’m just curious.”

“I hadn’t really decided that yet. Children’s, maybe.” Harry says. “Or one of those charity lawyers. Or criminal would be cool too, I’ve always thought. Just not corporate, though, that’s all I know.”

“Sounds good. You said you wanna help people?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, d’you know, it took you all of five minutes to restore my self-confidence just now. So I think any client would be lucky to have you.”

Harry looks up at Zayn, and it’s like a new light is in his eyes, and he looks like he’s about to say something. But just then the little bell over the door rings, and both Zayn and Harry glance over. A young man in a business suit is standing in the doorway and shaking the rain out of his coat onto the mat, his hair slick with water, his eyes doing a quick scan of the room before coming to rest on them.

“Lou,” Zayn whispers to himself.

At once, Harry leaps to his feet and jogs back to his place behind the register. Zayn half-expects Louis to greet Harry like an old friend, but Louis merely digs into his pocket for his wallet and orders a coffee, proceeding to take a seat on the other side of the café.

Zayn sits there for a long moment, not moving, before he finally gets up and walks over to Louis. “Erm,” he begins.

Louis looks up from his mobile, one eyebrow cocked. “Can I help you?”

“I just…” Zayn points feebly at the bowl of sugar packets on Louis’ table. “My table’s out of sugar. Could I…”

Pointedly looking around at the empty café, Louis drawls, “There are a million tables in here to steal sugar off. So if the real reason you came over here is because you were hoping for some kind of handout—“ he gives Zayn’s old clothes a once-over—“I’d have another think coming, if I were you.”

“Right. Sorry,” Zayn croaks, backing away. Louis returns to his mobile, but not before shooting him a final suspicious look.

Feeling his cheeks burn, Zayn picks up his knapsack from the floor and heads to the door. “I’m gonna go,” he mouths to Harry, who nods and waves a little from behind the counter, smiling as Zayn slips outside.

 _D’you ever wonder what it’d be like if none of this had ever happened?_ Harry had sleepily asked them once, back in the tour bus after a long show. They’d all been squashed into one bunk, too knackered to move, Niall’s head on Zayn’s stomach, Zayn’s leg across Liam’s chest. _All the time,_ Zayn had answered then.

 _Yeah, but I didn’t mean it like it was a wish,_ he thinks bitterly now, pulling his hood up over his head and charging out into the rain.

Zayn goes back to the café two days later, but Harry’s not there. The manager is though, a nice older woman named Barbara. She comes out from behind the counter, dusting her hands off on her apron, to give Zayn the bad news.

“Ooh, I’m sorry, love, he’s quit. Said he was going to go back to school.”

“D’you know where?” Zayn bites his lip.

Barbara shakes her head. “He said he was considering several places. Some abroad. Oh, I _am_ sorry, dear, I’d give you his number if I had it, but my mobile’s doing something funny and won’t turn on.”

Zayn’s gaze drifts back to the dessert case. The key lime pie is still there; Zayn recognizes the name card now as being in Harry’s clear handwriting. “I’ll have a slice of that pie, takeaway,” he says, because it’s the only thing left for him to do.

After paying for the pie and thanking Barbara, Zayn starts the long, brooding walk back to his flat again. _Fuck the universe,_ he thinks, but then hurriedly takes it back, in case the universe was listening. Just because this life is shite for him, doesn’t mean it’s shite for everyone else.

 

* * *

 

In another life, Zayn publishes his first novel at seventeen. He signs with a small publishing company, and the book doesn’t sell very well at first. But then a popular YA blogger happens to pick it up on a weekend trip and starts raving about it on Twitter, and _Midnight Memories_ shoots to the top of the local, then international, bestsellers lists almost overnight. Reviews call it “poignant and searing…a heartbreakingly realistic insight into the world of teenagers today.”

Zayn does interviews on morning shows and attends posh literary events he’s never even heard of before this, visiting bookshops and schools across the UK. Already his agent is planning tours in Singapore and America, and his editor emails him every week or so to ask how his second book is going.

Right now, though, Zayn’s in Dublin, doing a signing in Easons. The queue extends right out the door, outside of which they’ve got a giant _Midnight Memories_ poster with his face on. The bookshelves and display tables inside the store have been moved aside to make room for the gaggles of teenage girls who are standing on their tiptoes, trying to snap photos of him sitting up on the platform.

“Madness, innit?” Zayn whispers out of the corner of his mouth to Caroline, his PA, as she licks her finger and smooths a stray lock of hair behind his ear.

“Your fault for writing such a fantastic book. We all create our own circles of hell,” Caroline replies lightly, and then laughs when she sees Zayn’s expression. “Only joking. Right, sweetheart, it’s showtime.” She waves at the events host, who scrambles to take up the microphone and begin her introduction amidst a sudden chorus of screams.

Zayn reads a short excerpt from the book, and then takes a couple of questions from the host before the actual signing starts. The queue moves along fairly slowly, because the fans have a lot to say, and Zayn patiently likes to sit and listen to each one. Most of the girls tell him which parts of the book they cried the hardest over. A lot of them want to know if Zayn has any say in the casting for the upcoming movie adaptation. (A lot of them also want to know if _Zayn_ will be starring in the upcoming movie adaptation, a question which he always answers with a bashful but firm no.) If he starts taking too long with a single person, Caroline squeezes his shoulder subtly, a signal for Zayn to take the fan’s copy of the book, scrawl _Z. Malik_ across the title page, and move on to the next.

He sees Niall before he even gets to the table. He’s unmistakable, a tiny ball of energy bouncing at the foot of the steps leading up to the platform. His blond hair is in messy tufts, and he’s wearing a familiar worn purple anorak. Rather than speed up, Zayn pushes his time limit with each of the four girls before him, making small talk and chuckling at their enthusiasm, while he’s trying to think of something to say, something to ask. But before he knows it, the last girl has left, and Niall is standing in front of him, on the other side of the table.

Zayn opens his mouth to say hi, but Niall beats him to it. “I’m Niall, and I just wanted to say I’m a huge fan. Like, I’m really not much of a reader, but your book’s fuckin’ amazin’, it is. Sorry.” Niall flushes a little, but plows on. “I just, I mean, the only book I ever finished was _To Kill a Mockingbird,_ and your book is right up there with that.”

Zayn laughs. “That might be the best compliment I ever got. I should use it as a blurb on the back of me next one.”

Grinning widely, Niall says, “Right, the sequel. How’s it comin’? If—if you don’t mind my asking, that is.”

“To be honest? I’m up against the wall, mate.” Zayn’s not lying—he has a whole fresh ream of paper sitting on his desk at home, and nothing to print out on it. His characters haven’t felt real to him in a long time; he feels as though he doesn’t know them anymore, what they want or where their lives are going. “Don’t let on I said that, though. Editor’ll have me head on a bun for breakfast.” Zayn sighs, and then pauses, looking up at Niall. “What d’you think? Like, what did you like about this one?”

“You really want my opinion?” The pleasure and surprise on Niall’s face is clear as water. It’s what drew Zayn to him in the first place—the way he can’t hide anything he feels, the way it shines through in his eyes every single time.

“Yeah,” Zayn says. “I do.”

“Okay, well.” Niall rocks back on his heels a little before speaking confidently, as though he’s thought about this for a long time. “Most books want lads to be perfect, right? Tall, dark, handsome, witty, romantic, the lot. But _your_ book gets it right, though, like totally fuckin’ _right._ Nate and Lucas and all of them, they’re just normal guys who sit around talkin’ shit and, screwin’ things up, like.” Niall scratches his cheek with a finger. “Made me miss my friends, it did.”

“Your friends…not live around here, then?”

“Nah, England. Met them on exchange, but we’ve tried to keep in touch. I’ve told them to read the book, too, it reminds me of us that much. A-Anyway.” Niall takes a deep breath. “At the end of this one, we don’t know what’s going to happen to all of them, right? Whether Baz is going to stay in the group even after he moves away. Or whether things will ever be the way they were between Lucas and Matt. I was thinkin’, maybe just—keep going down that route? Because even with your really close friends, it don’t always work out perfect, it’s not always happy. Things go to shit. Growin’ _apart_ is just…part of growin’ _up,_ y’know?”

The lights inside the bookstore suddenly seem a little too bright, making things swim before Zayn’s eyes. He just about remembers to breathe, and Niall’s name is on the tip of his tongue, like a butterfly about to take wing—but right at that moment Caroline moves up behind him and squeezes his shoulder briefly. Whuffing softly in frustration, Zayn nods and holds out a hand to take Niall’s book. It’s been read a lot, he notices—the spine well cracked, the corners a little bent and a couple pages dog-eared.

Opening the book to the title page, Zayn writes _To Niall—thanks for the advice,_ without needing to ask how his name is spelt. He hesitates a moment over the signature, and finally adds, _From your friend, Zayn._

“Thanks so much,” Niall says fervently as he takes his book back.

“Nah, thank _you,”_ Zayn replies, and he wants to say more, so much more, but the guard is ushering Niall down the steps on the other side of the platform, and he’s replaced by a girl with pink hair and a T-shirt with a quote from the book printed on the front.

He doesn’t believe that, though, Zayn thinks later on the car ride back home, Caroline in the front passenger seat arguing with someone over the phone. Growing apart doesn’t just happen; it happens because of the choices you make. The mistakes.

But did he really make a mistake, though? The worlds he lives in can change a million times over, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever be a completely different person, doesn’t think he’s a different person now. If the tours and the fans and the editor get to be too much, Zayn fully intends to stop writing books, to go back to school and live a normal life.

And if someone told him, right now, that he could go back to that exact moment, to that night in the tour bus, he’s not sure he’d do it any differently.

Although he has to admit it’s a fitting gift from the universe, this is—him always being the one standing there, being the one to watch them walk away. Poetic license. The circle of hell he writes himself into, again and again and again.

 

* * *

 

In another life, Zayn spends months looking them up in the phonebook, calling the schools he knows they attended, Googling their names. But he can’t find them, any of them, and for a second it’s all he can do to not strangle himself for being such a prick about his music back then—because what did it matter, what the fuck did _the music_ matter if it meant they were all together?

 

* * *

 

In another life, Zayn auditions for _The X Factor_ again, just for the hell of it. His mum makes the drive from Bradford to London, him riding shotgun and tapping the armrest nervously, while his sisters in the back sing along to Kylie on the radio.

When Zayn sees the four of them all there for the first time, scattered amongst the horde on stage, (still so young, and with such naff _hair,_ why didn’t anyone think to _tell_ them), it’s almost like he’s come home. He almost hadn’t dared to hope, before this—but now that he sees them, he can feel the pieces of the puzzle fitting together, and he’s sure that this is it. His second chance.

So Zayn works hard. He sings his heart out, though he knows his voice hasn’t fully come into its own yet; he drinks lots of warm tea and tries not to go over the top with his vocal runs. (He even does the stupid dance thing, which he _still_ thinks is stupid, but he has a point to prove.) The whole time, he snatches glances at the others, holding his breath for them when it’s their turn to step out of the line and solo.

But for some reason, Simon Cowell doesn’t get a billion-dollar brainwave. None of them get through to the next round of the competition, and they’re sent packing after bootcamp.

“You were brilliant,” Zayn tells Louis backstage afterward, in the middle of the tearful crowd of contestants hugging each other and calling their mums.

Louis does a double take, looking faintly surprised as he rubs his red-rimmed eyes. They’ve only spoken once or twice before this—bootcamp kept them all well busy, and Zayn had thought it was okay, that they’d have more time. “Oh. Cheers, mate,” Louis says in a watery voice. “You were too…Zayn, right?”

“Yeah. Louis?”

“Yeah.”

“So…so what’re you gonna do now?”

Louis lets out a round breath, looking off into the distance. “Go apply to university, most likely. Already got my GCSEs, so.”

“You’re not going to try out again next year, then?”

“I dunno.” Louis is still gazing past the crowd, in the direction of the lit-up red emergency exit sign on the far end. “I wanted this so bad, but I felt like, like this was my one shot. That if I didn’t get through, I’d take it as a sign, or something.”

“Yeah. I know what you mean.” Zayn pauses, then unzips the front pocket of his knapsack, scrabbling around inside until he finds a pen and a scrap receipt. He writes down his number, then taps Louis on the shoulder.

“Hey.” Zayn holds the receipt out. “In case you want to…y’know, get together after this. Just hang out. Maybe jam a little. Or just hang out, really.”

Louis looks surprised again, but he takes the scrap of paper, folding it into a tiny square and nodding tightly. “Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we could…like, I play piano a little.”

“I know.” Zayn sticks his hands in his pockets.

“Cool.” Louis offers him a small smile, and in his face Zayn sees none of the hardness he was afraid of seeing. “Well. I’ve, erm, I got to go, me mum’s waiting for a call.”

Gulping, Zayn lowers his eyes and nods. “Mine too.”

“Yeah. Cheers, mate. Zayn.” Louis waves his fingers briefly at him before turning to leave. Zayn watches his red beanie bob up and down as he goes, watches as finally he gets swallowed up by the crowd and disappears.

“Keep in touch, bruv,” Zayn says softly, before reaching down to shoulder his knapsack and heading to the door.

Even if Lou never calls, even if this is all he’s going to get—it’s okay. As long as the last thing they say to each other isn’t hateful. It’s not an apology, what he’s done, but it’s the closest he’ll ever get.

 _And we’re going to be okay,_ Zayn thinks, as he taps his mum’s name on his contacts list and presses his mobile to his ear, closing his eyes as if it will help him hear the ringing better. _All of us, whatever we do next. We’re going to be okay._

 

* * *

 

* * *

 

In one life, Zayn wakes up to someone’s arm slung heavily across his middle, and someone else banging two pots together next to his ear while screaming, “WAKE UP, YOU LAZY FUCKS, IT’S TIME TO GO TO WORK SO WE CAN PAY OUR RENT!”

With a wild groan, Zayn aims a groggy punch at Louis and misses. Cackling triumphantly, Louis skips out of the room, still banging the pots.

Zayn tries blearily to determine whose arm is weighing down his ribs, and reaches back with one hand, fumbling until he finds a familiar mop of hair. “I know you’re not still asleep, Haz,” he says out of the corner of his mouth.

“I’m not,” Harry mumbles back cheerfully. “You just smell nice.”

“Whatever happened to bakers rising with the sun, like?” Zayn drags his palm across his face and allows himself to groan again, pulling the sleep right out of his lungs.

“Sun rises late in December. Besides, ’s my day off.”

“Didn’t know you got days off.”

“You do if you’re adorable as me.” Zayn can feel Harry’s low chuckle on the back of his neck. “Now come on, get up. There’re muffins in the kitchen.” With a small _hup!_ sound, Harry bounces out of bed, whipping the covers off Zayn as he goes.

“Shite, it’s _freezing.”_ Zayn sits up abruptly, hissing through his teeth, and makes a grab for his trousers.

By the time he staggers into the kitchen, the muffin platter on the counter is completely empty. Niall is sitting on the counter with his earbuds in, beating his heels against the side and air drumming with gusto. Zayn glances up at the loft, where Liam is still buttoning up his dress shirt, then glowers at Niall. “That’s _two_ of us you’ve cheated out of a proper breakfast today,” he says.

“If ya want the worm, mate, ya gotta be an earlier bird.” Niall smiles sweetly, then reaches around for the box of muesli, which he chucks at Zayn, hitting him squarely in the chest. “The late, impossible-to-ever-wake-up bird gets the crappy birdseed.”

“Dickhead,” Zayn says, elbowing Niall out of the way so he can reach up onto the shelf for a bowl and a packet of instant coffee. He rummages in the cutlery drawer for a spoon, carefully avoiding the separate container of spoons with the label on top that reads _‘Liam’s Only, DO NOT USE!!!’_ , to which someone has recently added in felt-tip pen, _‘LICK THEM WHEN HE’S NOT LOOKING, HE’LL NEVER KNOW!!!’_

The flat is worst in winter, because for some reason this is when the heater always decides to conk out. Liam is forever writing letters to their landlord—often with unwanted suggestions from Niall, whose contributions mainly consist of four-letter words—but it never changes. Harry frequently says that the five of them should share a single bed, that their body heat combined with Zayn’s ‘hotness-as-a-person’ will be enough to dispel winter throughout all of England forever. But because they have to at least pretend to be functioning adults, they’re rarely ever drunk enough for that anymore, so they’ve all become resigned to drowning themselves in hot coffee and burying themselves in as many thrift shop blankets as they can find.

“Don’t worry, Z, I’m making you an omelet,” Harry says reassuringly from over by the stove. He points his spatula at Louis, who is sitting on the sofa bed in front of the TV, stuffing tubes of paper into a large carrier. “Professor Tomlinson! What is on the learning agenda for your bright young pupils today?”

“Ah, well.” Louis picks up his mobile and looks at the screen thoughtfully. “According to my syllabus, today’s riveting lecture is entitled ‘A Postmodern Discussion of the Letter G and Its Real-World Occurrences,’ followed by a practical demonstration of the basic functions of the primary colors. The latter of which, _hopefully,_ will not create such a mess as the Great Play-Doh Fiasco of 2015.” He makes a sour face. “Little monsters.”

“Aw, you love them,” Zayn says, digging his spoon into his bowl of muesli.

“Betcha don’t even know what ‘postmodern’ means,” Niall scoffs. Louis doesn’t look up, but responds by flipping him off. “How ‘bout you, Zayner? Is it The Sculpture again today?” Niall gestures towards the corner of the flat that is Zayn’s studio, where a giant, unintelligible clay mass is sitting on the worktable. (Niall always tries not to look at it, out of respect for its unfinished form. Louis and Harry, on the other hand, shamelessly gouge their initials into it every couple of days, and occasionally a few very choice shapes.)

“When’s it ever not The Sculpture?” Zayn sighs and stares dully into his coffee mug. “That, and there’s a bar opened up downtown asked me to do their walls. Can’t think of where to start, though.” The bar owners are incredibly nice, and they’ve told Zayn they don’t have any ideas themselves, that it’s up to him to design what he wants. He’s done a couple of loose sketches, but he still can’t seem to get the vision right in his head.

Harry snaps his fingers. “Glow in the dark paint,” he says triumphantly, turning his bright gaze on Zayn. “You could use glow in the dark paint, make it go all swirly. Or no—galaxies, maybe?”

“What are you, a twelve-year-old girl? Forget the galaxies, just do a shitload of graffiti,” says Louis definitively. “And a giant picture of me face, to attract the girls.”

“Up yours,” Zayn laughs, but even as he says it, he can sense something in the back of his mind starting to take shape. Graffiti at eye level, wildstyle and caricatures, the shapes of people dancing and twirling together—then all of it slowly transforming into the spindly branches of trees further up along the wall, and finally, a moon and stars spread out all across the ceiling. Like what bars and clubs feel like to him—a forest of bodies, something dangerous and magical. He won’t know until he tries sketching it, but it’s a start.

“Right, lads, I’m off.” Liam jogs down the stairs from the loft, smoothing back his hair and tugging at the end of his tie. “Hi-ho, hi-ho,” he chants, scooping up his laptop case and marching towards the door.

“It’s off to work-in-a-boring-old-office you go,” Niall adds, hopping off the counter and falling into step behind Liam.

Liam reaches back and elbows Niall in the gut. “At-least-I’ve-got-a-steady-income-and-am-giving-back-to-society, hi-ho!”

“You ho,” Louis replies, and Liam laughs. One by one they all join in the song, harmonizing, Zayn beating his spoon against his bowl, Louis shaking his little plastic tambourine, Liam beatboxing and letting out the occasional operatic howl, until they dissolve into roars of laughter.

“You lot should start a band,” Niall says, once they’ve calmed down.

Liam scoffs. “Yeah, right. Can you imagine this on the radio?”

“No, I’m _serious,_ when you really try, you all sound fuckin’ brilliant! Even you, Z, don’t try to deny it, I’ve _heard_ you singing in the shower.” Zayn opens his mouth, not so much to protest as to demand why Niall’s been listening to him in the shower, but Niall just claps a hand over Zayn’s mouth and continues, “Listen, you’re better than half the crap I have to listen to in the studio every day.”

“All right, all right, we’ll be a band,” says Louis airily. “But only if you’ll be our sound producer, Nialler.”

“No, he’ll do us one better, won’t he? He’ll join us _and_ play the guitar.” Harry nudges Zayn’s shoulder and slides a big fluffy omelet on a plate in front of him.

“Why, thank you, Harold! And because I’m _so_ good at multi-tasking, I’ll _also_ be our manager and stylist. Get us matching outfits and that.” Niall taps his chin, pretending to think hard. “I’m seeing hair in gelled spikes, leather and studs. Naturally, we’ll put guyliner on you, Zayner, to bring out your exotic Pakistani features. Oh, and tattoos on our chests that, when we stand in a line, spell out the name of our band.”

“What _is_ the name of our band?” Liam asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Harry and the Hos,” Harry says promptly, and they all crack up again. “No, no, wait—Hawaii _Five-Ho._ We’ll be international superstars.”

“You know what that means, though.” Niall’s expression suddenly turns deathly grave. “We’d never be home. Traveling round the world. We’d have to give up all of this. Do we really want that?”

And in this space between two moments, Zayn stops to consider this life, the one that he’s fully claimed as his. He’s totally skint, and he’s making a sculpture that will probably never be finished, and he’s living in a building where the heating doesn’t work half the time, with four of the biggest arseholes in the world.

“Nah, we don’t want that,” Zayn says, and dumps his bowl of muesli and milk all over Niall’s head. With an outraged yell, Niall pounces and wrestles Zayn to the floor, shaking the milk off onto him like a wet dog, and Zayn just laughs, glorying in the ache in his sides and the cold December air.

 

**Author's Note:**

> For Kiki, and for Ces, and for everyone else who’s crying about these beautiful stupid boys. May our hearts be light.


End file.
